Six Month Check Up!

I am compelled to first describe THE HORROR that I found when I lifted Owen out of his car seat in the exam room this morning. I had to wake him up for our 9am appointment.

8:32 Wake Owen
8:33 Nurse Owen
8:43 Change and dress Owen
8:47 Put Owen in the car seat
8:50 Leave the house
8:59 Arrive at Dr. Office
9:07 Take Owen out of the car seat in the room
(note: having a child has done nothing to remedy my stellar procrastination skills)

Sometime between 8:47 and 9:07 THIS HAPPENED:

And this picture was taken AFTER I TOOK OFF THE SHORTS HE WAS WEARING! Needless to say, the shorts were a casualty and the car seat got a good scrubbing with Clorox wipes provided to me by the nurse who I swear was trying not to laugh when I pulled him out of the seat. She looks at me while saying, "Okay, just get him down to diaper...um..." as I was gasping at the pooy mess. Then she gave me a puzzled look when I grabbed for my camera instead of a baby wipe and took pictures of the mess before cleaning it up. But honestly, how could such a well-timed explosion go undocumented? This is what happens when I feed my child homemade sweet potatoes for his six month half birthday. He gagged on the sweet potatoes yesterday (I thought babies LIKED sweet potatoes??) and then poohed them out in public. Even worse, after I had cleaned the pooh out from between his toes, every fold on his leg and carefully rolled the onesies up over his head - I found a fleck of sweet potatoe NEAR HIS EYE! That fleck was a pooh potato and I just wanted to die.

So much for me being nervous about his shots...

Weight: 17 lbs 8 ounces - 50th percentile

Length: 27 inches - 75th percentile

Head circumference: 34cm - 50th percentile

This boy was a knock out at his visit. Look at those percentiles! He was so sweet for both the nurse and the doctor. He cooed and sat up and shot everyone his killer smile. By the time the doctor was done answering all of my neurotic-new-mom questions (does my baby need to drink water?) and jotting some stuff down she says, "Well, I don't even have to ask about milestones because he's demonstrated most all of them to me while we've been talking.You have a very social boy here." She showed me how he watches my mouth and moves his mouth - an early indicator of language development. She said his legs are super strong, his sitting up is great and even if he hates tummy time (which he still does) he tripods well and should start crawling from that position. She told me to be careful not to let him skip crawling because it helps with left/right brain interaction - which I had just read an article on this week. I asked her about him not giggling for us and she politely said, "He's very social, look at his smiles. Maybe you're just not that funny. I'm sure he'll tell you the same thing himself when he's a teenager, they always do." 

Medically Confirmed: My husband and I are Just.Not.That.Funny.

Sigh.

She looked inside his little mouth and noted that we have a few little toothies waiting to break through on the bottom - Owen has been sucking his bottom lip and drooling buckets for weeks now so I'm sure it won't be long. Then it was time for the dreaded vaccines. Four for our boy today because I opted for the flu vaccine which just arrived that morning (this year includes H1N1 and a new strain as well). Usually Jeremy holds Owen and I look away. Not this time. This time I had to be strong for my baby. [RANT: One of the things that really bothers me is how long it takes these nurses to uncap each vaccine and the slowly plunge it into my son's thighs. TAKE THE DAMN CAPS OFF BEFORE HAND AND GO FASTER ALREADY! Why not stab him as fast as possible so by the time he notices the first stick the rest are done?] He cried. But thankfully, I didn't. I did pretty well for my first time as the brave parent. The nurse slapped on some (unattractive brown) band-aids and I scooped up my boy for some snuggles. She left the room and I nursed him a little and watched him tell Sophie the Giraffe all about the terrible mean lady with needles.

All better now.

It goes without saying that I am SO INCREDIBLY PROUD and in awe of how my baby has grown. My body did this, it made this incredible child and then provided him the nourishment he needed to drip chubs off of the scale. My heart was so full as I drove home with my precious cargo. I love this boy with all my heart.

One Month

Six Months

He gets the follow-up dose for the flu vaccine in 30 days but after that no more check-ups or needles until 9 months - Owen is relieved, and so am I.